Stonekin: An Old God's Story
by Frettzo
Summary: Long ago, before White Diamond and even Homeworld, we were… Different.
1. Prologue

Pearl froze in her tracks, hands over her mouth and eyes open wide in shock. Garnet did her best to stare coolly at the figure in front of the three Crystal Gems, but couldn't help the shaking hands or worried frown that sneaked onto her expression. Saying the figure was large was an understatement as right now, it seemed to be larger than even White Diamond herself. It was sitting cross-legged, its upper body obscured by the inherent darkness of the cavern. Not even Pearl's light could reach its face.

Amethyst, who had fallen behind due to a piece of falling debris, gasped and skid to a halt when she rounded the corner into the room the other two Gems were in. "Wow! What the frick is _that_?!" Amethyst yelled.

 _"Amethyst-"_ Pearl went to hush Amethyst, but it was too late. The very earth began to shake as the figure shuffled. Slowly and carefully its ancient, chipped stone body stood up and now all of its body but its lower legs were encased in darkness. That is, until a pair of bright white eyes opened far above the three gems, shining like a spotlight down upon them.

"Get ready!" Pearl had pulled out her spear and began to speak, but was interrupted when Garnet stuck out her arm and held her back. At that moment, the figure spoke in a deep, rumbling voice that sent shivers down their back and made their minds go blank. Of course, the first to snap out of the reverie was Garnet.

"Crystal Gems…" It said to Garnet as it seemed to bend down to look at them more closely, "… Fighting…? There is no need for us to take that path."

The gaze was intense, more than anything she'd ever felt before. The closer it was, the heavier she felt. She fell to her knees just in time to hear her companions fall onto the ground unconscious.

"Who… What- are you?" Garnet asked through grunts and heaves as she tried to pull herself to her feet.

The figure kept silent for a moment. Then it stood straight. Immediately, Garnet felt the pressure lifted off of her and she sighed in relief.

"It has been a long time… A long time since anyone but me has been here and the first time one of you get this deep into the Temple of Gods."

Amethyst groaned and stood up, shaking her head. "Temple of Gods? Those Gods seriously need a lesson from Pearl in cleaning. This place is a mess."

The figure looked around, at its body and then back at the gems. "How long has it been since the Battle of the Pumice Plains, if I may ask?"

Garnet and Amethyst looked at each other and Pearl, who was now standing up, spoke. "The Battle of the… Pumice Plains? I'm… Afraid I don't know. That battle wasn't mentioned in any of the archives I've visited."

There was a sound like grinding stone. The figure was rubbing its palms together. "I see. How may I help you, so that I can go back to my eternal slumber?"

"We're here looking for a way to defeat White Diamond and liberate Homeworld." Garnet said without hesitation. The other two were shocked at how easily she revealed their mission to the strange figure.

"… I see. So she was successful. I'm afraid you can't defeat her, and those who could are long gone or in my case, long past their prime." The figure seemed… Sad for a moment. "Care to listen to an old God's story, Crystal Gems?"

The figure took the cool Garnet, shocked Pearl and uninterested Amethyst's silence as affirmation, and began to tell its story. A story of a long gone race on a long gone planet in a long past era.

"You see, long ago… Before White Diamond and even Homeworld, we were… Different."


	2. First Scene

Life was simple back then, on The Mantle. From the moment you came into being, you knew where you belonged and knew what was expected of you. It was a peaceful time with the occasional conflict, a time in which we multiplied our numbers and established our position as the dominant species on the Mantle. Of course, as our intellect and resourcefulness grew, so did our greed. Before we knew it, cracks had appeared in the very foundation of our society, and we ended up splitting up into Clans and going our own ways. Eventually we couldn't understand each other's tongues.

That's when the wars began.

Many of us were destroyed. What had once been an Eden was now coated in a layer of dust and rubble, that of our fallen kin. Before the Great Shattering, our numbers were in the millions. After it, we were thousands, all split into numerous Clans all wanting revenge. The thirst for death had to be controlled, however, and an unstable peace fell over the Mantle as the Clans tried to recover.

Our story begins there, with a young Basalt warrior named Basalt Magnstone.

—

The entrance to their Henge was a simple opening on the side of a Volcano that led into the Depths of the land. There, all remaining Basalts could find refuge from the world and their enemies and enjoy a fully traditional, conservative way of life. No Stonekin would find himself without a place in Basalt society. No Stonekin should think about living in a way different from the Basalt way of life, either.

Basalt Magnstone grunted as he walked the last stretch of cavern before reaching the Henge's entrance. It was always the same. Everyone was always the same. He gripped his iron spear weakly as he languidly took the last turn.

The rays of light blinded him for a moment as he saw the entrance, but that would not stop him from moving forward. He knew where every dip, every ridge and every stone in these caverns was, because the Elder Basalts made sure every part of the Henge was protected and unmoved. It was tradition to leave their sacred home as untouched as possible for the next generations, and tradition was all that the Elders were about.

The moment he exited the Henge, he felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder. Magnstone sighed and reluctantly turned around.

There she was. Basalt Dandite. She was much stronger and older than him, easily standing over two heads taller. Her shapely, dark grey stone body reflected some light into his eyes, making him shield his face in response.

"Basalt Magnstone, you know the protocol," Dandite said in a raspy voice. She raised an eyebrow when Magnstone rolled his eyes.

"… Understood, I apologise for my negligence," Magnstone said before walking back into the Henge, puffing out his chest and walking with heavy purpose. As he passed by Dandite, he stopped for a moment and spoke again, "Basalt Magnstone heading out for patrol."

"Good," Dandite nodded, "Walk proudly and by the Elders' Wisdom, grip your spear tightly. Next time it won't be just a hand on the shoulder. If an enemy catches you in such a pathetic stance, they'd disarm you before you could react." Dandite struck the ground lightly with her own spear as if to make a point and resumed her watch, silent.

Magnstone did his best not to react, and walked off. Soon enough, he'd vanished into the tree line at the foot of the Volcano.

"Don't you think you're a bit too harsh to him, Dandite? He's only fifty three cycles old, y'know." The second guard said all of a sudden.

"Shut up."


	3. Second Scene

The Land of Basalt was worn and weak like the world on which it stood. It consisted of the Volcano which the Land's denizens called the Henge and used as their home and the large, fertile forest surrounding it on all sides. To outsiders this forest, which was populated by all manner of scaly, feathered, furry and stony things and teeming to the brim with both shattered stone and growing crystal formations, was like an endless maze which only a Basalt could navigate fluidly.

It was in this forest that Basalt Magnstone, the youngest warrior in the Basalt Clan, spent his time. Walking through the undergrowth and making sure no foreign Stones intruded upon their sacred lands was his duty, and he fulfilled it well without a second thought or look given to the various primitive, animal denizens of the forest. With age, however, curiosity visited. While before he had never ever entertained the idea of distraction, now he often found himself observing the little furry things scamper around. He enjoyed looking for the feathered things' nests and watching their eggs hatch. He enjoyed getting lost in those ancient, impenetrable woods for weeks on end. At least, he enjoyed doing so in his ever-active mind, for if he dared be late to return daily to the Henge where his superiors awaited his reports, things would look bleak for his future. It was known that Basalts who disobeyed orders or showed lack of discipline were punished severely.

Magnstone would have felt a shiver go down his spine as a particularly chill breeze danced its way through the forest, were his body made of soft, fleshy material instead of the hard rock that Stones were made of.

He dully felt a set of claws climb over his leg and back and settle on his right shoulder. When he turned his head to look at the offender, he saw a small green scaly thing that he'd seen before climbing trees and eating leaves. It had six legs, a long, limber tail and two black eyes. Those empty, watery eyes looked at his face for a long moment.

By the time the little scaly thing got bored and scampered off his shoulder, the sky was dark and the stars were ever so gently twinkling, looking down at him like the gems on the ceiling back at the Nursery, deep in the Henge. The Lion's constellation was close to the zenith, and so that marked Magnstone's time to return to the Henge and report his shift as uneventful, like he always did.

Only this time, on his way back to the Henge, he heard something. It was like a soft voice was carried over by the wind, a voice that was singing.

And oh so beautiful were the intonations, and oh so intimate was the volume. Magnstone froze when he first heard it, but when the moments passed and the singing still came, he furrowed his brow in interest and followed the sweet sound.

Oh, what could be the beautiful being that was capable of such a voice? Who or what creature sounded so free and yet so close to the world itself, to nature?

At first he hesitantly walked toward the source, but as he got closer and he started feeling the voice reach his very soul, he broke into a run. It was when he burst through thick undergrowth into a clearing that he finally saw her.

A being of extreme beauty.

She was tall, perhaps taller than Basalt Dandite, she was coloured a very light grey and was kneeling in the centre of a ring of flowers. Her soft skin was different than anything he'd ever seen before. Her lively eyes, which moved gently from pretty flying insect things to flowers of all kinds, promised him a life he'd always yearned.

He'd made a lot of noise, and yet she hadn't reacted at all. If she'd noticed him burst into the clearing, she either didn't mind, or didn't care. For a moment, Magnstone tightened the grip on his stone spear, but seeing the stranger in such a vulnerable position, he let his posture relax slightly. Still, to the strange, he probably looked every bit a militant Basalt as any other.

He walked, or rather, marched his way to the stranger and looked at her, his cold, disciplined eyes showing an undeniable spark of curiosity.

"Hello, my name's Basalt Magnstone. This is the Forest of Cairns, may I ask who you are and what your purpose here is?" Magnstone asked, and the stranger stopped singing. He wanted to ask so much more. He wanted to tell her how her voice made him feel, how much she'd moved his stone cold heart with her tender singing. But, discipline instilled over half a century was hard for the young Stone to beat.

The stranger smiled. It was a strange thing, that smile. He couldn't tell if she was happy or sad. The moonlight caught onto fresh tears that made their way down the stranger's cheeks. She kept smiling, however, as she slowly stuck out a finger and let one of the flying insect things land on her finger.

"These butterflies are beautiful, are they not, Basalt Magnstone?" The stranger asked in the same beautiful voice that sang.

"They're called butterflies?" Magnstone fixed his gaze onto the insect thing now known as 'butterfly'.

"You go about life, blind to the world and blind to what you do to it… Tell me, Basalt Magnstone, when will you sing to the flowers? When will you soar the skies with the birds?"

"Basalts do not sing, and Stones cannot fly… I would have done those things long ago if they were possible."

There was a brief silence.

"… I will leave this place if you wish me to, Basalt Magnstone. I intend not to disturb your sacred grounds." The stranger said.

There was another silence as Magnstone pondered and the stranger looked at him.

"Truly… I believe you can stay. Your arrival has brought me much to think about, stranger."

"I understand, Basalt Magnstone," the stranger said before gently breaking the eye contact with Magnstone and closing her eyes, all this time having been on her knees on the grass, "You may call me Kimberlite."

Kimberlite? He'd never heard of that Clan before. Was it possible for new Clans to even form in such an age in the Mantle?

"Kimberlite, you're welcome to stay in the Forest of Cairns." Magnstone said and turned to walk back to the Henge. His superiors were, after all, probably waiting for him and he was on thin enough ice as it was… "However… I ask that you be here next night. Your gentle voice has brought much joy to me and the Forest." He said over his shoulder, and then disappeared through the undergrowth. As he walked away, he heard the soft singing start again, and for the first time in a long while, he felt a smile grace his face.


	4. Third Scene

**Hello people, sorry about the missed update schedule (wednesdays), things have been a bit hectic lately with me planning and, soon, executing a move which involves me going to live in another country. I might miss more Update Wednesdays in the near future, but I'll try to pump out the chapters as regularly as I can!**

 **That said, thank you for reading this story, I hope you've enjoyed my little bit of writing so far!**

The air was hot and heavy. The stone beneath his unyielding feet gave way to floors made of carved obsidian and the cavern turned into a great chamber of the likes no one would see anywhere but the Henge, Land of Basalt. There was nothing in sight for as far as the eye could see which wasn't much due to the thick plumes of black smoke and soot escaping through gratings and cracks along the carefully carved floors and converging into a heavy atmosphere meant to mark this as the one true entrance to the eternal home of Basalt.

Pillars half a dozen meters in diameter held up the ceiling of the chamber, stretching up into unseen heights. The chamber itself was illuminated by a series of long-lasting torches, each of which cast a number of shadows along the place. Magnstone always saw in those shadows the deformed arms of Basalts of old, reaching desperately into the shadows, the darkness, looking for anything that could free them from the chains of discipline.

Every night he would return from his patrol, and every night he would have to go through the One True Entrance, as this was the only path in the cavern system beneath the Volcano that led straight into the heart of the Henge.

The march through the chamber was long and lonely. The inherent darkness, barely beaten back by the torches, seemed as if it was inching ever closer toward Magnstone, trying to engulf him in its scalding grip.

Then the plumes and the air gave way and the arch came into view. A large gate made of the strongest metal developed on the Mantle, Black Tungsten, originally constructed into the arch as added safety to the Henge, was nowadays always open. Of course, it wasn't without its guards. Two Great Basalts, standing at three meters tall, were posted to either side of the Arch.

The Great Basalts saw him enter, Magnstone knew it, even though they moved no part of their body to show it. They saw everything. And everything was all that they reported to the elders, so one had to be very careful around them since the slightest show of insubordination would bring serious consequences down the line.

A great series of defences followed in the next few pathways. Everything from traps waiting to be prepared, to embrasures in the walls of the tunnels to more traditional defences like standard choke points awaiting would be invaders should they somehow get past the One True Entrance.

After the defences, came the Henge.

It was beautiful, and menacing. The flooring was the same as that of the One True Entrance, but everything else was different. The entire Henge was built surrounding the surface lever of the Magma Reservoir of the Volcano with a large, clear diamond barrier serving as protection for the eventual volcanic eruptions and giving the inhabitants of the Henge a direct view into the situations from which they all come from, and the thick, superheated liquid which may one day become more of them.

It wasn't just the fact that they were so close to magma that made the Henge such a hot place, even for Stones. It was also part of the design of the Elders, who purposefully assigned the majority of the worker caste into roles related to metals, whether they be research, development of new metals, or just working foundries or making ceremonial armours and weapons.

The climate around the Henge was hectic — it was in a perpetual state of getting ready for a war that never came, and so eventually there were entire warehouses filled to the brim with unused armour and weapons, all of the same design and function.

Magnstone clenched his jaw as he walked by a pair of worker Basalts desperately trying to shut the door to one of said warehouses, lest dozens of freshly-smithed spearheads come crashing onto them.

Oh, how he wanted to aid the workers. They had arguably the worst, most dangerous jobs of all and were completely dependent on the Elders for survival. He doubted any of them had ever seen the outside world, or the butterflies that flew between the trees, or the scaly things that stared and relaxed in the sun…

He stopped his march for a split moment, but when a group of Basalt Warriors turned a corned in front of him and came into his view, he resumed it with a sudden jump of his heart.

Nobody could see his hesitation and distraction, not in the Henge.

And so, after what felt like an eternity of walking through those black streets in that dark city illuminated by the orange rays coming from the Mantle's core, Magnstone finally reached his destination. The Eternal Hall.

There was no gate to block access to the great chapel-like structure. Neither were there Great Basalt Warriors by the entrance.

 _Wait,_ Basalt Magnstone thought as he halted his progress, _Why am I here? Wasn't I going to report to the Chief Basalt Warrior?_

Magnstone looked around himself. A chill went down his spine the likes of which he'd never felt before. His mind struggled to come up with an explanation, but there was none. Suddenly he realized that the entire area he was in was uninhabited. It was spotless, yes, and it was also beautifully crafted with what seemed to be buildings for all kinds of uses, but it was deserted.

There were rays of light coming from unseen torches in the second floor of all buildings, casting sinister and deformed shadows onto the avenue in front of the Eternal Hall. Magnstone felt watched, yet no one was watching him, or were they?

Magnstone fixed his gaze back on The Eternal Hall's entrance. He fixed it on the entrance, because he could not see further than it, even knowing that there was no gate or obstacle in his way.

He'd been called to the Hall, he realised. And while he knew of nobody that had entered the Hall, he knew this call was something he had to answer, something that he was meant to do. It was Fate.

And so Magnstone resumed his march. He passed the strange entrance and entered the unknown.

Only to see an eye the size of a mountain stare furiously at him. And then, how could he possibly describe what the voice — that horrible, vile voice — sounded like, what it felt like? Could he perhaps say that it sounded remote, hollow, heavy, deep, unearthly, inhuman, disembodied? Magnstone froze when he heard it, deep within his soul. He froze as he heard it, with the furious eye of some unknowable being staring right at him. He heard it come from a mouth, or perhaps several, as he noticed out of the corner of his eye the same deformed, sinister shadows that danced under the light of unseen torches, only now there was no light source other than the eye, made of magma and gemstones and rock, that stared right at him.

 _"YOU FOOL!"_


End file.
